3 Steps for Attracting Business People to Your Church

The character of a church is defined by the people who attend. The more well rounded and diverse your church, the healthier it will be. So if they have a robust artistic community or a lot of great teachers, it’s natural that artists and teachers gravitate in their direction. 

To flourish, churches need a strong base of business-minded members. A lot of the everyday decisions that help a church grow, rely on the strategic skillset of people who understand things like marketing, finance, and PR. But people with these strengths can be a little harder to draw. 

Here are a few tips for engaging and appealing to business-minded people:

1. Develop your leadership skills

Professional folks flock toward churches with strong leadership. When they visit a place that has a strong sense of identity and is moving in a strategic direction (albeit imperfectly), they become intrigued. On the contrary, they’re less attracted to churches where everything feels unfocused and chaotic. 

Not every pastor is a strong type-A leader, and that’s OK. But they can improve their leadership skills (and those of the people around them). They can also elevate people with stronger leadership skills into prominent positions.

2. Focus on LinkedIn  

When it comes to social media, most churches focus on the platforms with the broadest appeal: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc. Obviously, you can find people with a wide variety of interests on these platforms, but you’re competing with a million different churches. 

The great thing about LinkedIn is that not only are there fewer churches to compete with, but the entire platform caters to business professionals. This means that you’ll have to create content that’s more focused on things like marketing, leadership, and organizational concerns (but focusing on those concerns will improve your organization’s leadership). 

LinkedIn makes it easy to network and connect with others. And as you post consistent and helpful content, you’ll get on the radar of the right people.   

3. Network, network, network 

Don’t just wait for people with specific skills to come to you. Go find them. Come up with outreach ideas for businesses in your community. Send church members to appropriate business conferences, and attend similar gatherings and conferences at other churches. Make a concerted effort to connect with people in your community—and then follow up with them. 

Attracting people on purpose 

The real key to attracting different kinds of people to your church is to be intentional about it. Identify your congregational needs and the kind of skills that would meet those needs. You don’t have to feel guilty about looking for people with specific expertise.

When you identify the areas of weakness and what it would take to fill in those gaps, you can be strategic about the next steps. Talk to your congregation about what you’re looking for, pray about it, and then take these three steps to become the kind of church that attracts business professionals. 

How data is impacting the church

This is a critical moment for churches, technology is having a huge impact on almost every part of congregational life. If you’re interested in learning more, download a free copy of the ebook The Data Revolution and the Future of Giving for Churches.